Tiling generally refers to full or partially laying tiles over a surface. The surface may be planar such as a horizontal plane, a vertical plane or an inclined plane, or non-planar.
The traditional work process when tiling a planar area is started by marking leading lines along two axes of the area, denoted for example X and Y. The guiding lines may be marked using any device such as a laser pointer, a thread, or the like. A tile is then placed at the intersection of the lines. The tile is placed at a particular height, as the tiler sees fit or in accordance with a mark or a feature of the area to be tiled. The level of the tile may be verified using any level device, such as a water level, optical or laser measuring equipment or the like.
The next tile should then be laid adjacent to the first tile, preferably along one of the leading lines, wherein the two tiles have adjacent edges, with or without a spacer therebetween, and similarly for the following tiles. All tiles should be laid leveled, and their height should be the same as the height of the first tile. The level placement and uniform height may be verified using means such as a bubble level or a combination of a bubble level and a ruler, or any other means. In some cases a tiler may use a ruler to make sure that two or more tiles are all at the same height. It will be appreciated that the longer the ruler, the more tiles can be aligned. Tilers sometime carry and use a number of rulers in various lengths for ensuring uniform height and leveling along a varying number of tiles, and for working in rooms of different sizes. In any of the methods, alignment of the tiles with the desired plan is done based on the first tile height, and adjusting the level to the tile adjacent to the tile being currently laid or one or more tiles away.
When placing a tile, the tiler spreads adhesive mortar on the tile and/or the surface being tiled to be used as substrate. The adhesive mortar may be made of material such as thin-set mortar or other suitable glue. The tiler places the tile on the substrate and knocks or bumps using a rubber hammer or similar tool, on the tile to compact the filling material and lower the tile to its final position at the same level and plan as an adjacent previously laid tile. If at a certain time the tile descends too low, the tiler has to remove it and start over. The tiler may knock on the tile at its middle or on any other location such as any corner.
In other tiling methods, a substrate of sand is prepared as a foundation without an adhesive material, and the tile is being placed on top of the substrate without being knocked to place. The tile is then held at the position by its weight and the neighboring tiles.
Since a tiler does most of the task while kneeling, it will be appreciated that the tiler generally works his way backwards, starting on one end of the room and proceeding towards the other end, to avoid moving a pre-laid tile when placing an adjacent one, e.g., by standing on it, due to shift of the filling material before it is dried.
This traditional process has a number of disadvantages.
First, the process is highly subject to accumulated errors. Since every tile is placed relatively to a previously laid tile, even a small shift between two adjacent tiles caused for example by inexact reading of the bubble level, may accumulate to a significant and unacceptable error over a longer stretch such as the full length of the area.
Second, the process is sometime inapplicable to different types of tiles. One such type may be tiles with non-flat surface or with distortions, such as tiles of cut or split natural materials also known as sawed dimension stone, for example marble, or slate.
Third, a tiler may need to carry and work with a multiplicity of tools such as different rulers, which makes the work cumbersome and may be problematic in small spaces, or when tiling with non-rectangular shapes, sometime referred to as tessellate shapes, for example hexagons.
It will be appreciated that the errors caused by the reasons mentioned above, and possible other reasons, are additive. Thus a particular task can end up with poor results due to limitations of the tiles, the available tools and the work process.